1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of light microscopy. More particularly, this invention relates to a microscope array for scanning an object at high resolution or projecting a pattern onto a surface of an object.
2. Description of the Related Art
Pathologists are physicians responsible for analyzing tissue specimens, fine-needle aspirates of tissues, cytology specimens, and liquid specimens such as urine and blood by light microscopy. Analysis of specimens frequently is accomplished by viewing specimens on slides through a light microscope or by viewing electronic images of the specimens on a video monitor. Video images can be obtained by mounting a video camera on a conventional light microscope and capturing images in either an analog or a digital imaging mode. Microscopes with motorized stages translate slides to move one portion of the specimen on the slide into a field of view of the microscope and then translate to move another portion of the specimen into the field of view. Microscopic digital images of entire specimens can be assembled from the individual digital images. Light microscopes have a field of view (FOV) measuring from 10's of microns to millimeters in diameter, depending on the transverse magnification of the objective. To image an entire standard microscope slide (i.e., a 20 mm by 50 mm microscope slide) requires a conventional light microscope to scan back and forth multiple times. The scanning process is time intensive. As a result, all portions of the pathological specimen are not imaged. Rather, the pathologist depends on statistics to determine a normal or an abnormal culture. Digital images of a percentage of the pathological specimen are scanned and captured in a matter of minutes using the conventional motorized light microscope.
While it is possible to design an optical system with a single optical pathway which has a FOV comparable to the microscope slide width, such a design requires a very large objective lens which in turn produces a large imaging system requiring substantial stabilization of the microscope during scanning and imaging. As a result, microscopes with smaller objectives and smaller FOVs have been used, and a subsample of a few thousand fields of the pathological sample may be relied upon to represent the histopathology, cytopathology, or histomorphology of the specimen. The complete pathological sample is not necessarily viewed which can be suboptimal for medical purposes.